


If They Knew You At All

by Medie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deanna scoffs. "Eat another damn berry. Your Touched By an Emo Angel routine is giving me a headache."</p>
            </blockquote>





	If They Knew You At All

**Author's Note:**

> contemplating girl!Dean fic and, er, this came out instead.

She does not see herself as she is. Most humans do not, Adam's inheritance shuttering their eyes, but it has never pained him as it does with Deanna. Oh, it has always caused him grief, stabbing deep at his soul when he steps into their realm, but not like this. Castiel has never known pain so sharp, a yearning to reach out, seize her and make her _see_ the light shining bright, the sheer glory of creation wrapped up in her soul.

Deanna shifts beside him and stretches her legs long and lean, burying her toes in the grass. With a deep sigh, she tilts her face toward the sun and glories in its heat. The berries she'd been eating lay abandoned at her side, soft in the afternoon heat.

He sits quiet, content, for the moment, to simply watch her.

She opens one eye to watch him. "Uh oh," she says, sighing. "Serious angel face time. No lectures today, okay? This is downtime. No seals, no demons, signs or portents, just me and the sun." She hesitates, "And you."

Her inclusion of him, however grudging or reluctant, warms him in ways the sun cannot. Castiel feels blood rush to the cheeks of his host's face, an unexpected tightening of his heart accompanying the action. He probes it curiously, as a child might a loose tooth, and is surprised by the pleasure that flows free. She has accepted his presence in her life before, but not like this. He isn't quite sure of a proper way to describe it, human speech falling woefully short of the accuracy he prefers, and so he does not. He accepts it as it is, letting the warmth settle deep within him.

"I was not going to lecture you, Deanna," he promises.

With a grin, she rolls onto her side to properly look at him. Her body is pleasing if his body's response to it is any judge. When she rests her chin on her hand, the strap of her white shirt slipping down her shoulder, the motion draws his eye to the skin now left bare.

She snickers and he realizes the action was deliberate.

"That's a relief," Deanna says, kicking one foot lazily, bare toes trailing the uncut grass. "Cause for a second there, I thought I was going to get another one of your destiny specials." She points at him. "I'm doing the job, that should be enough for you and _Him_."

She swallows, dropping her hand. "Uh, no offense intended. I, uh, just -- " Deanna sighs. "Fuck it, I am so not good with this shit. You picked the wrong Winchester for this stuff."

Castiel shakes his head. "The choice was the right one, Deanna, there was no mistake." He looks at her again and sees the whole of creation, birth and death, temptation and release, bound up in sleek muscle and soft curve. Looking at her, he is all too aware of a time when his brothers sought the miracle of their flesh. "You cannot see what we see, what _I_ see when I look at you."

She flushes. "You know, if you weren't an angel -- " A laugh of disbelief falls free from lips still slicked red by berry juice. "No, it's _still_ a pick up line."

"It's the truth," he insists. "Whatever lies they have whispered in your ear, it is the truth." He reaches for her, laying a hand along the curve of her cheek. "Creation was incomplete until Eve drew her first breath, an inheritance passed down from mother to daughter unto this very day as it was passed from your mother to you." He watches her smirk falter, hesitate, and her expression soften. "You have taken up her mantle, Deanna, continuing her fight."

He remembers her mother. Powerful, strong, and sees the same in her daughter's eyes. "No one could have done this better than you."

She tries to smile. "Seems to me we're getting our asses kicked."

"We have lost battles, the war is already won," Castiel reassures. He is confident in this. Has known it from the very core of his being, but never more so than now, sitting at her side. "I see that victory in your eyes."

Deanna presses her lips together, swallowing. She looks down and away, then back at him. "You really freak me out sometimes, you know that?"

He nods. "You've never been quiet about it."

She snorts a laugh. "Why bother? You'll just sit there and glower it out of me anyway." The light-hearted moment passes too soon and she sobers. "This is going to get complicated isn't it?"

Castiel sighs. There is no easy way to answer her question. He has spent much time contemplating it himself. More than he should and still has found no answer. None he dares give voice to. He has never known apprehension before. Deanna has introduced him to a great many things, each more unexpected than the last, but of all this is the only one that he regrets.

She smiles, honest and open for once, laying a hand over his. "Relax, complicated is nothing new for me."

"It is for me," he admits.

"Yeah, well, I'm a bad influence." Deanna pushes the berries toward him and rolls onto her back. "I'd offer you a beer," she grins, "but I'm betting that's a no-no. Besides, I get you drunk, the boys up yonder aren't going to be happy with you."

"Their opinion is of no matter to me," Castiel says, popping a berry into his mouth. The taste is sweetly sharp on his tongue, causing hunger to rumble through his stomach. He watches Deanna eat one as well, tongue chasing juice along her lip and knows a hunger of another sort.

A bad influence indeed, but he cannot find shame in the matter. Not when he sits in her presence, close at her side, sharing something they cannot name.

"I wish you could see yourself as I see you," he says, barely above a whisper.

She looks at him. "Better that I can't." A grin plays over her lips. "Sammy already thinks I've got an overblown ego. You make it worse, he'll never forgive you."

Castiel thinks of her brother and the sacrifices she has made in his name. She has damned herself for Sam, fought her way free of the grave for him, puts one foot in front of the other, haunted by the host of hell for him.

He thinks he can speak for himself and Sam both when he says, "There would be nothing to forgive."

Not for either of them. Not because of her.

Deanna scoffs. "Eat another damn berry. Your Touched By an Emo Angel routine is giving me a headache."

Castiel sighs.

Of course, there are moments when he wishes for days spent at Job's side.

At least, there, he knew peace.


End file.
